This Is What I Am (This Is What I Was)
by crackinthecup
Summary: '"I won't tell you that what you did was right," Aredhel said, clutching him to her even tighter.' Regaining a body is the easy part of leaving the Halls.


**A/N:** Written as a birthday gift for the lovely alackofghosts on Tumblr :)

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Maeglin forgot many things during his time in the Halls.

Bone had shattered against rock, and he had expected the blankness of death, his senses smoothing over into nothingness. He had not expected the pain to follow him. There was darkness, bright agony ripping through his _fëa_ , churning and howling. He did not know whether it was the anguish of his _hröa_ hounding him beyond the grave, or his spirit so long suppressed finally screeching out its torment; and at that point, he did not care. He could not remember how not to feel; he had never learned how to seek comfort.

He forgot that in another life he had fashioned things of beauty and wonder: the white-blue glimmer of a sword flashing like cruel dawn in the bowels of the mountains, cowing the spirit of unwholesome creatures. He forgot the brief, pallid sunlight that sometimes flickered through the foliage of Nan Elmoth, like a sickly bird taking a wrong turn. He had craved it, even as he had recoiled from it: it had been warm on his cheeks, and in his mother's smile; but it had hurt his eyes. He forgot Gondolin's white-washed walls, the patter of bare feet, the silvered tinkle of fountains; the warmth of ring-strewn fingers tangled through his own as the sunset shone bloody through the spray of water. He even forgot the choking dread of whips, of dark smiles and gilded words.

For a long time, there was only him. The pain persisted, and he had no choice but to endure, to taste it in all of its bitterness. Yet the Halls were a place of healing, not torment; there was enough misery on the bloodied shores of Middle-earth. Slowly his distress ebbed; he became aware of all the little lives unfolding around him.

The other _fëar_ mingled among themselves, and among the Maiar bound to these solemn Halls. Distantly he could see them, their quivering outlines, the shimmer of their hearts. Yet he never joined them. If desire for company had once bloomed within him, it was now wilted and sere. He had no need of their help—or their scorn.

So it was that when a Maia came to draw him away from his corner, it was the first interaction with another being he had had in long wheeling years. The Maia spoke no words to him. He did not know whether or not its cowl concealed the flash of eyes. He might have been unnerved, once. But now he rather thought that the Maia was not at all amiss amid the gray walls and gray pillars and the ancient sorrow of the tapestries.

And though no words passed between them, he grasped its intent, a part of him suddenly certain that he was ready. He no longer needed to make a home out of the Halls. He arose, finding that bone and blood and sinew had reformed around his _fëa_ , as easily as molten silver clings to the baser metal over which it is poured. He opened his eyes and gazed upon the body he had had of old. And he found it utterly alien.

Wordlessly the Maia handed him a set of garments, simple breeches and a black tunic. He wrestled his body into them, limbs flopping bonelessly, uselessly, as he tried to remember the basics of movement. The Maia watched impassively, neither helping nor hindering; thousands of times it had seen the graceless struggle back into life, and with the keen insight of its kind, it knew it could do nothing to ease the fate of the Eldar.

At length Maeglin stood fully clothed, a slight flush of exertion and embarrassment high on his cheeks. With his body feeling detached from him as a coat might from bare skin, it was all too easy to remember what a simple thing motion used to be, how smoothly and naturally it had come to him; it was easy for frustration to blister in the wake of those memories. He stumbled after the Maia, ungainly as a new-born foal, blundering down corridors both new and familiar.

In moments of restlessness he had explored the Halls, straying from his corner into high-ceilinged passageways that seemed to hold an eternal vigil of their own. Some of them were swathed in tapestries, and at first his _fëa_ had leaped and quivered at the thought of espying a familiar face stitched there for posterity. Yet he had despaired to see happiness blasted to ashes, erstwhile companions leached of life, his mother's family broken and bloodied. He had stopped coming. He had stopped digging through the past, or waiting for whatever heartache the future would bring to those sad walls. It all seemed immaterial in the Halls; there were no clocks to tick away the time.

The Maia now led him far beyond those memories, into corridors where air still breathed sweetly, passageways that did not feel like a graveyard. He could discern a speck of light in the distance, and it grew and grew as they neared, expanding into a sunlit archway beyond which the Halls abruptly ended.

He had imagined this, yes; and yet somehow in his reveries there had always been cool air against his cheeks, a star-dotted sky opening above him. He had never imagined sunlight—and what bright, blinding sunlight it was. The Maia left him, silently gliding onward to some new errand, and he simply stood there and tried to blink, struck sightless by the sun.

''Lómion?''

Names were meaningless in the Halls. Too many memories were glued to them. But something fragile and hopeful stirred within him to hear _Lómion_ spoken aloud, and he thought that perhaps he remembered that name, he remembered that it had once belonged to him: beneath the dark boughs of Nan Elmoth, a forbidden murmur upon his mother's lips; and later, nestled into warm arms as the dawn crested over the peaks of the Echoriath.

Yet he had not expected someone to be waiting for him outside the Halls. In his wildest thoughts he had hoped for it, that much was true. But time was endless in the Halls, and unnumbered thoughts had come and gone. No: he had expected to find himself in an unfamiliar city, all gleaming and beautiful and daunting, and he had expected to be alone. Just like before.

He slotted his eyes open the tiniest bit, wary of the sun. The figure at the foot of the stairs was robed in white, and he quickly screwed his eyes shut again, pained by the brightness of the fabric.

''It's all right,'' he heard the figure say, a woman's voice, a quaver speared through it as a bow-string drawn to wobbling tautness. His heart knocked itself against his ribcage: it was a voice he knew; a voice he loved.

And dazedly, with fear he had thought long extinguished suddenly knotting in his chest, he climbed down the stairs toward Aredhel. He had planned what to say to her: more often and more meticulously than any other interaction. But it was hard to think, to urge his tongue into eloquence, when dread rattled in his throat.

In the golden sunlight of Aman he cleared the last step of the staircase. His eyes were downcast, bent upon the white of his mother's jumpsuit. Memories that had become dusty and unclear now leaped vivid and startling and accusing into his mind: his mother toppled to the floor, such a deceptive trickle of blood staining her shoulder; the tint of life still fresh in her face when they told him that she had passed; his father's black words, his shriek like that of a terrified animal; the numbness that deadened his heart at the sight of Eöl's body broken upon the rocks, so small when viewed from such a height; a blazing crown, blackened fingers cupping his cheek, that cruel mouth forming such damning, glorious promises; ruined white walls, the fountains choked with death, and blistering hatred on the stern ageless face he had so desperately adored.

''I'm sorry,'' he said before he was even aware of forming the words. His gaze remained carefully downturned. Disgust, fury, loathing, disappointment—he did not know which of them he would find reflected in Aredhel's eyes; but he knew that whatever gutting emotion he would see there, it might just rip him asunder anew.

Yet all his doubts were unfounded. Aredhel did not hesitate, throwing her arms around him and enfolding him into a firm embrace. He stood rooted to the spot for the space of several aching heartbeats.

''I won't tell you that what you did was right,'' Aredhel said, clutching him to her even tighter; his neck was wet with her tears. ''But it is done, the lands that witnessed such sorrow are now toppled beneath dark waves. I love you still, Lómion. And I would have us move past all of this.''

Once he might have kept to his silence and his thoughts, wondering _how_ , wondering _why_ ; his twisted dreams of happiness had never been worth the ruin of a city. Yet now he simply nodded, tightly, into Aredhel's hair, heart wild within his chest. While the world outside had tumbled through the centuries, he had learned to neatly parcel out the past, consigning it to his deepest thoughts, there to wither and never be revisited; and he was loath to rattle that box of old and jagged bones.

Yet Aredhel had spoken of toppling, of dark waves, hinting at cataclysm. And for the first time since he had stopped visiting the tapestries, chill curiosity arose in him. He wondered how long it had been, how woefully the world had changed.

''How …'' He swallowed; words were unwieldy upon his tongue. ''How long have I been in there?''

Aredhel released him. She swiped a hand over her cheeks to wipe away the wetness there. ''I do not rightly know.''

Maeglin did not reply. He simply stood there, silent and unsure, too aware of his limbs. He did not know who he was supposed to be around her.

But Aredhel gave an easy shrug, continuing as though centuries and terrible deeds were infinitesimal in the sunlight of these lands: ''Long enough, I suppose. It's funny, how hard it is to keep track of time here. News is scarce from beyond the sea, and I do not go looking for what little there is. Most days the woods are enough in the way of company, and they're so uneventful that I haven't thought of owning a calendar.'' She smiled, and to Maeglin it seemed infinitely sad. ''Yet I do know this: the Second Age is flourishing on what is left of the Hither Shore.''

Maeglin nodded. New-spun though his bones were, a sudden melancholy weariness made them heavier than they should have been. Yet it seemed to anchor him in his body. His heart beat a little less frantically.

''And what of this place?'' he asked quietly. His gaze slipped from her to follow the slope of a valley to the edge of sight. He could make out a haze of gold edged with a sturdy mountain mass upon its eastern side. There was a distant breath of sea on the breeze, a faint sound of sighing waves.

''Not much changes here,'' Aredhel said, turning her head to look upon Valmar and the distant Pelóri. ''Unless you count the cry of gulls. Normally it is joyful, yet sometimes it comes cold and mournful down the wind.'' She subtly shook her head, and the smile she then gave Maeglin was so bright and familiar that a trill shivered through his heart. ''Eru, I used to live by the sea once, in mild Vinyamar. The gulls were an atrocious nuisance. Findekáno swore that he was harassed by one twice the size of his head for a morsel of bread.''

Maeglin had heard the story before. But he smiled nonetheless, delighting in memories of a time when tales could be told without the haunting tread of sorrow in the background; those times had been filled with such potent, fruitless hope.

He had spotted Fingon once, in the midst of ruthless battle, and had recognized him by the glint of gold in his hair. Fingon had looked as fierce as though he had stepped out of valiant legend. He thought of meeting him properly, and Argon too, with his short hair and roguish smile. He thought of Turgon, whom he had betrayed.

But Aredhel was looping her arm through his, steering him away from the dark, solid shadow of the Halls. With her presence so warm beside him, even the sunlight seemed kind. He listened to Aredhel's tales of leafy forests and jeweled streets and lulling, silver waves, and decided that the past could remain forgotten for a little longer.


End file.
